


You Left Your Mark

by thecryoftheseagulls



Category: Being(s) in Love Series - R. Cooper, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A Being(s) In Love AU just means I get to go way overboard with describing everybody's scents, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, Initial Shiro/Adam, M/M, Mates, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Pining Keith (Voltron), Scents & Smells, Season/Series 07 Spoilers, Unrequited Love, Werewolf Keith (Voltron), Werewolf Mates, You're Welcome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-06-23 23:53:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15617796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecryoftheseagulls/pseuds/thecryoftheseagulls
Summary: You weren’t supposed to be able to recognize your mate until you were an adult, until you both had come into your own and become "the person you were going to be" or some feelingsy bullshit like that. That's what Keith's Pop always said. And good thing too, because being Rejected by a mate was the kind of horror story no werewolf ever liked to talk about. Like losing a spouse of 50 years. Like your body was eating itself alive, trying to make up for the fact that you'd been left by the one person the universe thought you were fated to be with. You'd live through it, but it would hurt.Too bad Keith has always been a fucked up kind of were.





	1. Baby, It Hit So Hard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes:  
> \- This is an AU inspired by the Being(s) in Love books by R. Cooper, which I can't recommend highly enough. Basically, a number of mythical creatures (werewolves, dragons, fairies, etc) revealed themselves to the world around World War I, and have been living openly among the humans since then. Wolves are born, not bitten, and Keith's dad was a were, so he's technically half-were and half-Galra in this story.  
> \- There are heavy spoilers for Season 7, Episode 1 in this first chapter (some dialogue actually taken from some of the clips leaked after SDCC). If y'all want to avoid spoilers, I recommend waiting a couple more days till season 7 drops to read.  
> \- The title for this fic is pulled from the song [Remind Me to Forget](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY3lRSmdLQg) by Kygo and Miguel.

You weren’t supposed to be able to recognize your mate until you were an adult, but Keith was always a fucked up kind of were.

He was fifteen, and full of shit, and Takashi Shirogane had waltzed into Keith’s life with kind eyes and broad shoulders, and instead of treating the man with the respect and awe his Galaxy Garrison uniform inspired in the rest of the kids at school, Keith had stolen his car. And yet, Shirogane had still stuck his neck out for Keith, which was maybe the first time a real adult had had time for any of his shit since Keith had been on his own.

Keith didn’t recognize what the smell meant right away. He got that Shiro smelled fantastic, like ocean brine and that searing blast of heat when a jet engine first fired up. He knew his mouth watered every time Shiro stood within ten feet of him. But Shiro was hot, and Keith was a teenager with werewolf senses, so none of that had to mean anything. 

Until the day it did.

They were out in the desert -- Keith’s territory. Shiro had offered to teach him how to fly a hoverbike properly, although Keith didn’t think that little cliff dive Shiro had shown off would be Garrison approved. Just because Shiro was good enough to pull it off didn’t mean he had any business showing it to a brash fifteen year old who’d already proven he had an impulse control problem. But god, Shiro had looked good doing it.

When Keith finally circled around down a more gradual incline and caught up to Shiro, he found him parked on a rise, leaned up against the side of his bike, watching the sun set.

“All right, you won this round, but I’ll get you in the next race, old-timer,” Keith tossed out as he parked and hopped off his bike. 

Shiro chuckled wryly. “I don’t doubt it.”

“How’d you do that dive, anyway?” Keith asked, leaning back, crossing his arms over his chest. Mirroring Shiro, if he was honest.

“You liked that one, huh? It’s allll about timing,” Shiro said, drawing out the word ‘all’. “You pull up too soon and you won’t have the momentum needed to create lift. Too late, and there won’t be enough lift to avoid the crash.” He gestured with his right hand, like his hand was the hoverbike in his explanation.

“You think I’m ready to try that?” Keith asked. He could imagine it – the wind in his hair, the little puff of sand he’d throw up at the bottom when he pulled it off. Shiro, right behind him, whooping in approval when Keith succeeded.

“What do _you_ think?” Shiro asked. He was using his teacher voice, doing that thing where they turned a question back around on the asker. It was a test, Keith knew, but it didn’t feel patronizing the way it would coming from any of the rest of Keith’s teachers.

Keith chewed on his bottom lip and gave in. “Maybe I should be patient, and -– keep focusing on the basics, first,” he admitted.

“You’re learning,” Shiro said, his brows lifting. There was warm approval in his voice, thick like honey, and Keith felt that approval like a physical touch, all the way down to his toes.

He changed the subject, then, asked Keith about his pop, and Keith answered more honestly than he usually did, because it was Shiro, and because he was still a little thrown off by how strongly he reacted to Shiro’s approval, and Shiro’s… everything else.

They both lapsed into silence for a minute, and Shiro looked away, west, out where the sun was setting.

This was the memory that would haunt Keith for years afterwards: Shiro, young (because he had been then, no matter what Keith thought at the time) and handsome, wearing a dark leather jacket over a tight white shirt. The sky was stained, east to west, in violet fading to fuschia fading to rich amber, the kind of backdrop that Shiro should always be framed against. The sunset painted Shiro in warm golds and soft shadows, accentuating the strong line of his jaw. Shiro leaned back, tucking his hands in his jacket pockets. Then the wind picked up, driving the smell of heated basalt and sand -– desert smells -– to Keith’s nose, and with it, the tang of Shiro’s sweat, and something else, something Keith labelled lightning/saltwater/sage/ _home_. 

Shiro smiled at him.

And Keith jerked backwards, nostrils flaring, and stared.

“Shiro,” he said. His voice cracked.

“Hmm?” Shiro asked, arching a brow.

“Would you--” Keith was never sure, afterwards, what it was he had wanted to ask in that moment. “Why did you vouch for me?” he asked, instead.

“You deserved a chance,” Shiro said. He studied Keith’s face for a moment, and Keith caught his breath, wondered what Shiro saw there, if he could see what Keith could feel, if he _knew_ what they were to each other, even on some primal, subconscious level. 

Then a device on Shiro’s right wrist chimed, and Shiro turned away, touching a button on the wristband. His scent soured.

“What are those?” Keith asked. He inhaled, trying to figure out what the shift in Shiro’s scent meant.

“Oh, um, these are just some electro-stimulators, to keep my muscles loose,” Shiro said. He looked shifty, but Keith didn’t sense a threat, not an external one, at least.

“What’s wrong with your muscles?” Keith asked, suspicious.

“Ah, nothing,” Shiro said, turning away and climbing back onto his bike. “It’s just what happens when you get to be an old-timer. C’mon, we should get back to the base.”

Well, that was fine. Keith would figure out what bothered his mate eventually.

His. His _mate_. Keith was giddy with the revelation as he turned to get back on his own bike. He had a mate, and he was probably the most handsome person Keith had ever met, and he was an astro-explorer and a pilot, everything Keith had ever wanted to be himself. Keith could see it, now, all the potentials in their future, the two of them as pilots, together, and it was a brighter future than Keith had thought about for himself in years, not least because it was one where he wasn’t alone.

Keith had one hour of flying, one blissful, wonderful hour, with his mate at his side, and a universe of possibilities to look forward to, and then they made it back to campus, and Adam was waiting for them in the hangar.

“Takashi,” Adam said as he came up to the two of them, and he smiled a private kind of smile, and kissed Shiro right on the lips as soon as Shiro took his helmet off, before Shiro had even gotten off his bike.

Keith’s growl echoed off the walls and the planes around them. Shiro and Adam had both turned to look at him, startled.

There was an awkward silence. Shiro knew Keith was a werewolf; he’d seen Keith’s file, and Keith had never tried to hide what he was, what his Pop had been, but they’d never talked about it. And Keith had never acted much different than a human in Shiros’ presence so far, although James and a lot of other people always tried to start shit about how the only reason Keith was good enough for Shiro to notice was because of Keith’s _werewolf senses_. Which was a load of bullshit – you didn’t need the strength of a wolf or the nose of a wolf to pilot.

“Keith, this is my boyfriend, Adam,” Shiro said. It was obvious he was trying to be helpful, and diffuse whatever kind of wolf faux pas he’d just walked into, except the problem was that Keith’s mate had just kissed someone else, and calling them his actual boyfriend only made it worse. 

“Hi there,” Adam pushed up his glasses with one finger. He was still touching Shiro, his arm wrapped familiarly around Shiro’s waist. Shiro flicked Adam a glance, just a quick one, but it was long enough for Keith to catch the tiny smile Shiro gave his boyfriend.

And Keith should have known. Shiro was an _adult_ , and a _human_ ; he didn’t have Keith’s senses to tell him that he might be destined to be the mate of a werewolf, and he sure as fuck wouldn’t have waited around for some teenager to show up and claim him before he dated someone else. Keith didn’t need to get to know Adam to know that he was a lot of things that Keith was not – an officer, an adult, a human. He was a lot of things that Shiro needed and Keith couldn’t be.

But the knowledge that Keith’s mate had rejected Keith before they’d even met was _agony_ ; it was a fireman’s vest on a bedpost that no one ever came back for, a mother that had left Keith before Keith was old enough to know her all over again, one more mark in a fucking long list of people that _left_ , and this time Keith hadn’t even had the chance to fight to keep him. Shiro stuck up for him because Shiro saw potential in Keith’s flying; he’d given some orphan kid a chance to see the stars, but he hadn’t _chosen_ Keith, and Keith had been a fucking idiot to think, even for a moment, even for an hour, that Shiro had.

Keith tripped, trying to rip the helmet off his head and get off the bike at the same time, his pulse pounding in his ears with the need to get away, to hide somewhere in a dark den and lick his wounds, and maybe never, ever come back out.

“Keith?” Shiro asked, when Keith landed heavily on one knee with a grunt. Shiro moved, then, pushing Adam slightly so that he could stand up and go over to Keith.

Which absolutely could not be allowed to happen. Keith couldn’t take it if Shiro got close to him again, his scent like sage/heat/what-might-have-been-home, not when Shiro belonged to someone else, not when Shiro had purely platonic concern in his eyes and no idea why Keith felt like he’d been shot. 

Keith grit his teeth and pushed to his feet, setting the helmet on the seat of the bike without looking. It rolled off, hitting the ground with a thud.

“Thanks for the lesson, Shiro,” Keith said, backing away already. “I’ll see you around, okay?”

“Keith, what…” Shiro took a single step after him, and Keith’s heart caught in his throat. But maybe Keith was wrong? Maybe he’d misunderstood. Maybe Shiro hadn’t--

Then Adam stepped up beside Shiro, and Shiro didn’t resist when Adam took his hand.

Keith growled again, not in warning this time, but in pain. He shook his head at Shiro, and turned on his heel, and when he left the hangar, he didn’t pretend it wasn’t at a run.


	2. Dead Man Crawling Tonight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Elizabeth Swann voice* do you like...ANGST

The facts were these:

Keith had a mate.

His mate was everything Keith had never thought to want.

Keith’s mate didn’t want him.

Keith stared at the ceiling those first few nights instead of sleeping, listening to the quiet breathing of his roommate and listing what he knew about werewolf mates. 

He knew it was unheard of for a wolf to recognize their mate this young. You weren’t supposed to meet them, or at least know them as your mate, until you were both adults. It was something to do with becoming the person you were supposed to be, or some feelingsy bullshit like that. You weren’t ready for your mate until you were a whole person on your own.

Keith had heard stories, of course, about late high schoolers recognizing their mates -- wolves who were like seventeen. But even that was supposed to be terribly, terribly rare. He didn’t think anyone had ever found their mate at fifteen. 

Maybe it was because Shiro was older?

Keith groaned. It didn’t really matter how or why this had happened; it _had_ happened, and now Keith had to deal with it.

And whatever people said about how or _when_ a wolf found their mate, there was one thing all the stories agreed on: a Rejected wolf was a fucked-up wolf.

Keith didn’t sleep at all the first three days.

There was a hollow in his chest where his heart had been, except it turned out his heart had never belonged to him, and it had always been just waiting around to throw itself unexpectedly at Shiro’s feet. Which was fine. So Shiro didn’t want him like that. He had already given Keith so _much_ , it only seemed fair that Shiro should have something of Keith, in exchange. But god, it fucking _hurt_.

Keith’s bunk was cold, and empty, and sure, it had never been big enough for two people, but an instinct inside Keith kept insisting that his bed was missing _something_ , that it wasn’t _home_ , despite the fact that Keith hadn’t had an actual home in years. 

He could feel exhaustion dragging at him throughout the waking day, but the steady insistence that his bed wasn’t _right_ kept him awake at night, aching for a presence Keith had never had, insisting there was no rest to be had if Keith couldn’t rest beside his _mate_. 

It wasn’t dark enough, or secluded enough, for Keith to feel like he was in a proper den, but he didn’t want to get out of bed in the mornings, either, didn’t want to face another day of furious whispers that silenced when he got close enough, or his classmates’ eyes glaring daggers into his back, or the knowledge that he wasn’t enough -- old enough, talented enough, good enough -- for his mate to want him. 

His eyes felt as dry as sandpaper. 

His very bones felt heavy. 

He just wanted to curl up and never move again.

***

On the fourth day since Keith had recognized his mate, James Griffin cornered him in the locker room.

“You look like shit, Kogane,” James said. He lingered in the locker room doorway after everyone else had already hit the showers and left. Frowning, like he had any right to comment on what Keith did or did not look like.

Keith grunted. There was no real point in denying it. He had shadows under his eyes that were only growing more pronounced by the day. His face looked gaunt, his eyes bloodshot.

“No, seriously,” James said, stepping back into the room and making his way to Keith over by the sinks.

Keith ignored him, and went back to staring at the bags under his eyes. As if that would make them go away, or make Keith able to sleep through the night again without being haunted by the ghost of a feeling that his mate should have been beside him. 

Keith sneered at his reflection.

This many years on his own, and all it took to wreck him was a man with a scent like desert thundershowers and a smile bright enough to light up a room.

Pathetic.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” James demanded, stopping a safe distance behind Keith. He still had a fading bruise on one cheekbone from Keith’s fists. “This isn't _normal_ , even for you.”

“Like you know anything about me,” Keith muttered, glaring at James in the dirty metal of the mirror.

“I don't have to know you,” James said. “I know you shouldn't be as tired as you have been this week, even if I didn't already know you don't tire easily, because you're a _wolf_.”

“I'm _fine_ ,” Keith said, through gritted teeth. “You don't have to worry about me, Griffin.”

He turned and marched out of the locker room, knocking his shoulder into James’ as he passed and driving the other boy back a step out of pure spite.

***

Later, Keith rubbed his nose and stared at the whiteboard at the front of the classroom through bleary eyes while Major Klein went over the manned missions to space in the last 20 years. 

Easy stuff. Keith had lived and breathed the stories of Garrison astronauts for years.

Major Klein circled the name Oscar Sattler and tapped his marker against the board.

“Now, who can tell us which of the Odyssey missions was piloted by Sattler?” He scanned the cadets sitting in their tidy rows in front of him, eyebrows raising.

Keith made an effort to sit straight and at least look like he was paying attention, rubbing idly at his sternum. His chest ached dully, a consistent low throb that Keith was beginning to think was the new normal.

“Cadet Kogane,” Major Klein said, zeroing in on Keith. He folded his arms over his chest and waited expectantly.

“Um.” Keith’s hand stilled on his chest. He dropped it back down to his desk self-consciously. 

_Sattler_ , the board read.

Major Klein stared. 

Keith knew this. Oscar Sattler was one of the first and therefore the most well-known of the pilots sent to investigate a series of Jupiter’s moons on what the Garrison had called the Odyssey missions. He’d been sent to one of the four moons that the Garrison had found most promising.

“Are you sick, Cadet?” Major Klein said, his voice sharp but not unconcerned.

Keith dropped his hand again.

Someone in the back snickered. A scent, acrid like jealousy, but with an overripe plum smell of dark pleasure, satisfaction, wafted in Keith’s direction from whoever it was. There was a word for that feeling, for the kind of person who smelled like that. Keith couldn’t remember what it was.

“No, sir,” Keith said.

The Major gestured back at the board, a sweep of his arm with his palm held up. _Well then, we’re waiting_ , it said.

“He piloted the mission to...” Keith swallowed hard, and guessed, “Europa?”

Major Klein frowned.

A week ago, Keith had been the kid who could always be called upon to know the answer to questions about the history of astroexploration. Maybe he didn’t know much about general history or advanced mathematics, but he knew about spaceflight, and his hands already knew their way around the flight control in simulations. 

Sometimes Keith thought he’d been born to fly.

But a week ago -- hell, four days ago -- was an eternity, now.

“Ganymede. Oscar Sattler piloted the first of the Odyssey missions, and he was sent to the moon Ganymede,” Major Klein corrected. He went back to the board and wrote GANYMEDE in large blocky letters next to Oscar Sattler’s circled name.

Keith sank in his chair and rubbed gentle circles with the base of his palm against his chest, wishing the new hollow inside him would go away, and, failing that, that it would at least stop throbbing.

Keith didn't hear much else of the lecture until the bell rang for them to go to lunch. He looked down. The _Notes -- Astroexploration, A Concise History_ file on his tablet was open. His cursor pulsed pointedly on the damningly blank page Keith had opened for today's entry.

“Cadet Kogane,” Major Klein said, as Keith exited out of his notes without saving and shuffled his tablet into its case with a frown. The rest of the class was filing out the door. “A moment of your time, please.”

Keith slank to the front of the classroom with his bag over his shoulder, focusing on keeping his shoulders straight when all they wanted to do was curve forward to protect the hollow of what was once his chest. 

Major Klein frowned at him anyways.

“Keith,” he said, as the last of Keith's classmates disappeared. “It's not like you to space off in class. Well--” the Major pursed his lips, “it _is_ , but it's not like you to guess the answer to a well-known piece of astroexploration history.” His voice softened, and the concern there made Keith _itch_. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine, sir,” Keith said, fighting to keep a straight face, keep his fingers from gripping too tight round the strap of his bag.

“Hm.” Klein studied Keith's face, with a gaze so intent Keith wanted to squirm under it. He dropped his eyes to the floor, unable to maintain eye contact under that scrutiny. “I know the Garrison can be an adjustment for many students -- for some, their first time away from home, for others, the military discipline and strenuous expectations of classrooms can be... overwhelming, at times.”

Keith pressed his lips together.

“I'm sure I can handle the workload, sir.”

“Yes, I'm sure you can,” Major Klein agreed. Keith's eyes snapped to him in surprise. “You're one of my best students, Keith, and don't think I haven’t read about your impressive simulation scores in your file. When you're not showing off in the field, that is.”

“Sir--” Keith swallowed, throat thick, felt the tension he'd been carrying around in his shoulders intensify, like a weight was pressing down on him, pushing him into the floor with all the words he was not saying and the need, the _biological_ need he'd suddenly found himself dealing with too many years too soon. 

Nobody wanted to hear about the things Keith’s wolf needed, Keith reminded himself. That had been true since his pop died, and it was true now, in a military academy that valued discipline and self-control. And Keith might have a temper, sometimes, but he _could_ control his wolf. He could. It was the only way he’d been allowed to stay in the home with a bunch of non-Being kids all these years.

“I won't press you now, Keith; I'm sure you want to be getting to your lunch,” Major Klein was saying. “But things seem to have taken a different turn for you recently in terms of your performance in my class, and I'd like you to know that my door is always open to you, should you need it.”

Keith rubbed at his chest, unable to do little beyond blink furiously and mumble, “Thank you, sir,” before Klein was dismissing him.

***

Keith smelled him before he saw him, that steel and thundershowers scent that he had memorized without knowing it. It was faint though, a mere impression, clinging to another scent with the kind of saturation that meant a long term commingling of scents and space.

His mate's boyfriend, then.

Keith was not fast enough to avoid him.

He kept to the far side of the hall, brushed up against the opposite wall from the man in an instructor’s -- officer’s -- uniform, not far enough away to avoid the bergamot and cinnamon of his scent or fail to notice how tangled it was with the lingering impression of _Shiro_ on Adam’s uniform, his skin. Keith growled under his breath, and then stopped, mortified, angry at his own sabotage of his attempt to go unnoticed.

Adam looked over, pushing up his glasses in surprise, his face brightening when he recognized Keith.

“Hey there -- Keith, right?”

Keith grimaced, caught out, before turning slowly to squint at him. Adam remembered his name, Keith could tell, and there was something about the casual friendliness of the greeting that set Keith’s teeth on edge. 

Could’ve been the scent, though.

“Yeah?” Keith scowled.

Adam looked taken aback, but he gathered himself quickly. 

“How are you settling in? Shiro tells me your simulator scores are as good as his were. Better, maybe.” 

Keith shrugged. The praise was nothing he hadn’t heard before, from Shiro and Klein and a couple other instructors he hadn’t ostracized yet with his “discipline issues”. He figured it was only a matter of time before the others stopped complimenting him too, if Klein was already disappointed in him. 

Adam seemed to take the shrug for modesty, because he laughed and came closer, confiding, “It’s good to have someone come along and show Shiro up once in a while. Keeps him honest.”

Keith wrinkled his nose, and edged away down the wall.

“Shiro doesn’t need anyone to show him up. He does that just fine on his own.”

“I’ll be sure and _not_ tell him that, thanks,” Adam said, snorting. “Can’t have it going to his head that he’s got another fan.”

Keith bristled. He opened his hands from clenched fists and shook out his fingers, willing the twitchyness in his hands to go away, but there was a deep ache in his gums too, a growing hot-hot- _hot_ anger in his gut that spelt bad things for this man wearing his mate’s scent like it belonged to him, like it belonged against Adam’s skin and not _Keith’s_. Maybe it did, if that’s what Shiro wanted, but there was no telling the wolf that, not when Adam was talking -- the way that he was.

“I’ve gotta--” Keith started.

“Well, anyway, we’re glad you’re here,” Adam said. He reached out. Keith ducked away just in time to avoid Adam’s outstretched hand landing on his shoulder, a snarl ripping out of him.

Adam froze, mouth opening in a comical little moue of surprise, hand still outstretched.

“Don’t--” Keith folded his fingers to hide his sudden claws, dug his nails into the palms of his hands until he bled and the sharp pain cleared his head enough for his claws to recede again.

Adam's brow was pinched when Keith risked a glance at him again.

“Anyways, Shiro’s been looking for you,” he said. “I guess he hasn’t seen you in a few days?”

“Been busy,” Keith muttered, looking away.

The nearest classroom door swished open, spilling orange-clad cadets out into the hall.

“Well, I’ll tell him I saw you, anyways.” Adam stepped to the opposite side of the hall to allow the stream of cadets to pass them by, and raised his voice to be heard under the sudden clamor. 

Keith shrugged, knowing it would get back to Shiro that Keith was being weird and unsociable and avoiding him, but that was -- that was for the best. Keith could barely be around Shiro’s boyfriend without half-shifting and growling like a wolf with his paw caught in a trap. He absolutely could not see his mate like this.

“Well.” Adam seemed to sense that was all he was going to get out of him. He waved a hand from across the crowd and continued down the hall to wherever he’d been going before Keith growled at him, calling, “I’ll see you around, Keith!”

Keith pressed his back against the wall, letting the other cadets move around him, buffeting him occasionally. He tilted his head back and breathed, until the scent of Adam-and-Shiro was muffled under the scent of two dozen other bodies and the sterile air from the vents kicking back on.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](http://thecryoftheseagulls.tumblr.com) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/cryofseagulls) for updates on this and my other sheith fics!


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